Category Archives: Safety

There’s a reason I’m writing this blog to get my butt in gear; I don’t have it all together yet. Case in point: there are piles of things in pretty much every room. Now, it doesn’t look like an episode of Hoarders or even Clean House, but it definitely isn’t ready for guests with 5 minute notice.

Good thing we have a week, then.

My brother and sister-in-law are planning on bringing their adorable kiddos over for a visit this coming weekend, and I couldn’t be more thrilled. We live half across the country from each other and visits like these either at our house or theirs are treasured. This time, though, Daniel and I are working on child-proofing our place in time for the niece and nephew to tear through it on their toddler and baby missions. They will probably terrorize the dog, who will eat up the attention. Zoe loves kids.

Before we start putting up the breakable items and adding latches to the cabinets and drawers, though, we have some tidying to do. Life gets so busy and I get lazy. Even my love of organizing (and writing a blog about it!) isn’t enough to beat my desire to sit down and enjoy a movie without cleaning after a long day at work. I have far to go. Fortunately, I’ve also already come a long way to get here, so the cleaning is limited to putting things back into their places and getting a head start on the dusting.

Here’s the plan:

Round up all the stray objects and put them back in their homes. This includes, but is not limited to, notebooks, shoes, papers, and jackets.

Throw out a few water empty water bottles left on the coffee table from our recoveries from colds.

Find homes for the items displayed by recent sorting above the laundry areas.

Clear out our landing area on the second floor, which has organically grown from the spot we held items in the process of being sorted into a permanent storage facility. That’s gotta go.

Vacuum, dust, and make sure all the last germs from the cold are banished from all surfaces of the house. I guess that means Lysol. Gross. I hate the smell of Lysol.

Add the child locks and latches to doors and drawers, and plug in outlet covers. Can’t be too careful!

And that’s it. We’ll be working on those things this week, then sit back and take some time to relax with our family. I love that part.

Sometimes when you’re doing one home maintenance project, you discover another that needs your attention while you’re at it. For us on Sunday, that project was our dryer vent and hose.

Daniel had gone outside to throw out a couple of old small appliances we had in storage. I went out to join him, and just happened to see something that made me run back inside and grab a screwdriver. Our external dryer vent was so clogged with gunk that I was scared it would trap the heat and cause a fire. In my hurry, I missed the “before” picture shot, but here’s a nasty looking capture of the soggy fuzz I removed.

I know. Gross.

And then we found this little horror …

Ohhhhhhh, boy. Can you say “Home Depot run”?

For now, it is duct taped closed while we wait for a little extra manpower to help unhinge the dryer closet door and then move our dryer out so we can attach the new flexible hose we purchased to replace this. Yet another thing you can do with duct tape!

I took the removable part of the vent into the house and rinsed it off to get it nice and clean. Voila!

It puts my mind at ease to know that I caught that hot mess (literally!) before it caused any serious harm to us.

My name is Andrea and I invite you to join me on my journey toward creating an organized home, one small change at a time. I blog about home organization and budget decor with an emphasis on keeping a relaxed home--from a reformed messy's point of view.